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The No Deo Duo
The No Deo Duo is a comedy and entertainment channel starring two roommates, T-Wrex and Primal Instinks, and featuring their friends. It began as a personal hobby and an artistic outlet to share the good times the two had together as best friends since becoming roommates, as well as a social networking alternative to outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which the duo shared a distaste for. Once their amateur home videos began getting mainstream attention and fans began asking for more, the two expanded the channel to be a diverse, innovative collection of athletic competition, satirical comedy, wild and crazy challenges, and eccentric antics. Their personal taste in content reflects their mutual interests and inspirations, including the daredevil antics of the Jackass crew, the weird and gross humor of cartoons such as Ren and Stimpy, the comedy sketches of YouTube duo Smosh, vloggers such as PewDiePie, and the parody and satire found in some of their favorite shows, such as Futurama and South Park. The channel was created in January of 2016 and quickly earned a cult following of over 750 subscribers in less than six months. On September 18th, 2016, the channel reached a milestone of 1,000 subscribers, and in January 2017 it celebrated its first birthday. Content The channel is organized in titled playlists which are updated on a regular basis. All videos are filmed from a comedic/entertaining standpoint, and generally include instances of banter, parody, and satire. The comedy skits utilize retroscripting, where a plot is thought up and the dialogue is improvised on the spot. In some instances, the duo film dramatizations of scary scenarios, such as drowning in their backyard swimming pool. According to the official channel description, the content categories include comedy and entertainment (parody, satire, banter), athletic competition (boxing, breath holding contests, weight lifting, wrestling), eccentric humor (stompdown videos, barefoot and deodorant-free living), wild and crazy challenges, vlogs, and music. The No Deo Duo Sho The main outlet for the channel is "The No Deo Duo Sho," which is a playlist of original comedy and entertainment skits thought up by the two friends. As their channel name suggests, a center theme of their comedy revolves around the unconventional fact that neither of them uses deodorant. As a result, they're sometimes seen subjecting their audience, as well as each other, to their body odor in the spirit of this eccentric humor. The duo are also known to utilize self-deprecating humor, as is exemplified in the "Primal Instinks the Unwashed Rat" video (embedded below), or the "When Neighbors See Us Filming" skit, where T-Wrex plays a neighbor who happens to see the duo filming one of their stompdown videos in their backyard and reacts accordingly. This is SPAR-ta! These videos are boxing matches which take place in the backyard of the house the duo live at. In every video aside from the first match, protective head gear, mouth guards, and hand wraps are worn along with the boxing gloves. The two (and their friends) trade heavy blows, but never seriously hurt each other. The videos include banter along with the boxing to make the videos more entertaining. Whereas most rounds in boxing would last a few minutes, some of their fights turn out to be endurance matches where each video is one long, continuous round. In some boxing videos, the duo add their own playful commentary in the background to highlight certain events that may have been difficult to notice from the angle the video was filmed at. The commentary was a parody of what you would hear by celebrity commentators at a professional boxing event. Let's Get Stompy This playlist contains what the duo calls "stompdown" videos, which are filmed from a ground point of view with the camera facing up, and consist of them pretending to stomp, or crush, the audience down below, which they refer to in the description as "going all Godzilla on you." The stomping is accompanied by entertaining banter, and includes the duo's own signature stomp moves, such as the elevator stomp (dropping both feet together down on the camera in slow motion), the yin-yang stomp (putting one of each foot of both stompers together in the form of a yin-yang and slowly lowering them at the same time), and the tap dance on your face (one of them doing a wild tap dance over the camera). The duo have also filmed underwater versions of these stompdown videos using a water-proof GoPro camera. Having an interest in dinosaurs since he was a child who owned an entire toy chest of them, Primal Instinks was inspired to create these types of videos from this prehistoric interest, along with being a fan of Godzilla, which is where the stomping and roaring comes from. The slow-motion scenes and floor angle were inspired by one of his favorite scenes from Family Guy, where Stewie and Brian Griffin destroy Peter's "Surfin' Bird" record while the Geto Boys rap "die, motherf*cker, die" in the background. According to the blog on their official website, these stompdown videos are what originally jump-started their cult following, and the channel began expanding in content and growing in followers from there. Breath Hold Battle A contest between two friends where each one takes a turn holding their breath as long as they can while the other person covers the competitor's nose and mouth with their hands to ensure they don't cheat, while an embedded timer displays how long they hold their breath for. The person who's mouth isn't covered aids the video with entertaining banter. The duo and their friends find new ways to compete by holding their breath, such as attempting to solve a Rubik's cube in one breath, both on land and underwater. Underwater breath holding videos are filmed using a GoPro camera. Primal Instinks is the reigning champion of the breath holding battle, with his longest personal record being clocked at 5 minutes and 5 seconds, which he ended up passing out on camera at the very end of. On his offshoot solo channel, Primal Instinks has impressed his followers by passing out a few times from holding his breath for so long. Along with the stompdown videos, the breath holding battle videos tend to receive the most views on the channel as far as playlists go. Home Gym Workout/exercise videos which are shot by the duo either from inside their home gym, or outside in the backyard. Their equipment includes two 35-pound dumbbells, a barbell with two 20-pound weights and several smaller weights, and two pieces of equipment which work several different muscle groups. They have one piece of equipment which includes pull-up bars, handles for perfect-form push-ups, dip bars, and arm rests for leg raises, and another piece of equipment exclusively for sit-ups, with pegs to add weight for extra resistance. According to videos in this playlist, the two machines mentioned above were purchased using donations sent by fans of their content. Interestingly, the duo sometimes create their own weight resistance when doing push-ups or crunches together by placing their foot on the back (push-ups) or core (crunches) of the other friend while they're performing the exercise. They are also known to sometimes use the weight of each other in place of actual weights, for example in the "Fireman Carry Squats" video. The Pool Kids Club These videos are shot at the above-ground pool in the backyard of the duo's house. They have filmed events such as underwater handstand and somersault competitions, watergun fights, flips and dives into the pool, breath holding contests, lap swimming contests, underwater fold-up chair races, underwater screaming compilations, pool wrestling matches, and several scenarios where they pretended to drown one another. The title of this playlist is a play on "The Cool Kids Club." Wrestling / Breathling One day during the filming of a backyard boxing video between Primal Instinks and Chief Slapahoe, the sport of wrestling was brought up. The chief challenged Primal to a few rounds, and from there the idea to expand the channel to include wrestling was born. When Storm made his debut appearance on the channel soon after, Primal Instinks challenged him to a wrestling match and filmed the two matches they had. The wrestling playlist was created from those two rounds, and included as an addition to the athletic competition and sports playlists on the channel. The duo play by submission rules, where matches are run by either applying chokeholds or limb-locks to your opponent in an effort to get them to tap out. If an opponent fails to tap out while in a chokehold and loses consciousness, they automatically lose the round. During a wrestling match between Primal Instinks and Danny Duck, a new sport idea was created. T-Wrex would later name this new sport "breathling," which is a portmanteau of "breath" and "wrestling," as the object of the sport is to wrestle the breath from your opponent in order to win. Limb-locks are not allowed in this style of wrestling, breathling matches must be won by either using chokeholds or "smotherholds" to win, which means using the palms of your hands to block your opponent's airways (nose and mouth) so they can't breathe. Breathling is a hybrid of the duo's wrestling and breath hold battle playlists, and the only way to win the match is to cut off your opponent's oxygen supply until they either tap out or lose consciousness. Upon uploading the first breathling match, it was very well received by their audience, with fans commenting suggestions and support for future matches of the new sport. Personnel The No Deo Duo is T-Wrex the crushasaur and Primal Instinks the unwashed rat. They also feature their friends on the channel as well, who use nicknames and personas of their own. T-Wrex T-Wrex is a co-star of The No Deo Duo, and a close friend and roommate to Primal Instinks. This channel marks his first appearance on YouTube. At first he wasn't interested with the idea of being filmed and seen across the internet by an invisible audience, as he doesn't share his roommate's interest in photography and film making, but he quickly warmed up to the idea after he realized how fun it was, and along with providing a unique character for the channel, he also began submitting video ideas of his own for use on the channel. T-Wrex's persona is the "crushasaur," which is a dinosaur that likes to stomp everything in sight in predatory fashion. T-Wrex, who stands 6 feet tall, has unusually large feet and is the bigger of the duo, weighing around 30 pounds more, and is a fan favorite in stompdown videos as a result. T-Wrex is also able to perform more reps whenever the duo work out together. Ironically, he has the endurance to run for much longer than Primal Instinks without tiring, but can only hold his breath for about half the time Primal Instinks can. A recurring catch-phrase of his is "what is happening?" whenever something strange or discomforting occurs. Another personal quote of his is "I like existing," which is his overall outlook on life. T-Wrex's favorite color is orange, and his favorite bands include Pink Floyd, Three Days Grace, and Sublime. Some of the channel videos that were his ideas include "Pokemon Battle, GO!," "Don't Forget to Bring a Towel," and the "Solving a Rubik's Cube to Save a Life" challenge, which is a behind-the-scenes video included on the duo's website as a gift to fans to donate to the channel. According to the duo's personal website, T-Wrex is a smart person but has always struggled a little with reading and spelling, adding to the prehistoric satire of being raised in a cave. This is mocked by Primal Instinks in the video embedded above. Primal Instinks Primal Instinks is a co-star and vlogger of The No Deo Duo. He is a roommate to T-Wrex, who he names as his best friend. Primal Instinks has had prior experience with a few YouTube channels before this one under different aliases, which were mainly solo efforts and served as precursors to some of The No Deo Duo's patented playlists, such as breath holding contests, comedy skits, and work out routines. These early channels weren't as successful in finding an audience, and were deleted as a result. On the duo's official website, Primal Instinks reveals that he unconventionally doesn't use body soap, shampoo, deodorant, or toothpaste due to his natural outlook on life and his natural lifestyle. He is aware that this is frowned upon in modern society, so in the spirit of self-deprecating satire, he created an "unwashed rat" persona for himself. He also doesn't like to wear shoes, and only does when absolutely necessary, and as a result spends most of his life barefoot, even driving his vehicle barefoot when the weather allows for it. T-Wrex gave him the nickname Primal Instinks based on his primitive hygiene habits and natural outlook on life, with "Instinks" being a play on "instincts" due to his unwashed lifestyle, which carries the threat of body odor. Primal Instinks states that he views himself as a vermin to society only in jest, and plays along with the joke at his own expense for the sake of entertainment. Due to his choice of not using hygiene products, he entertains his persona, which is basically an unwashed young man with a rat's brain, by speaking highly of body odor, and expressing his hatred for soap, cologne/perfume, and deodorant. His fascination with body odor is illustrated in videos with him attempting to smell his friends' armpits, or sneakily smelling their shoes when they aren't looking, a habit he's had ever since he was a young teen. In the video "My Strange Addiction - Smelling Shoes," Primal Instinks reveals in a vlog that he finds the smell of skin-dwelling bacteria breaking down sweat to be enjoyable, something that everyone is brought up to believe is an offensive smell. He states he discovered he enjoyed the smell as a young teen one day after catching a whiff of one of his best friend's shoes, and later found that the same smell occurs whenever someone is wearing gloves on their hands for too long. In an open vlog, he comically revealed his enjoyment of the odor to the world by smelling a collection of old shoes his friends had given him as gifts to use for the video. Primal Instinks has stated that holding his breath has been a skill he's practiced all his life, ever since he was small enough to fit in the bathtub, where he would often spend time trying to stay underwater as long as he could instead of washing his body. He would hold his breath in class during boring lectures, and practice at home whenever he was bored in his bedroom alone. He's never met a friend who could beat him in a breath holding contest, and the many minutes on end he effortlessly goes without breathing amazes people both in person and on the internet. He enjoys showing off his breath holding talent and pushing his body's limits with the help of his friends, referring to it as his personal choice of "benign masochism." He compares the thrill he gets from going past his breath holding limit to the rush people experience from skydiving, and refers to himself as a breath holding daredevil due to behind-the-scenes requests he fulfills as gifts for fans who donate to the channel. On his solo channel, he uploads additional breath holding videos for his fans of the talent and provides comedy vlogs to go with it. Primal Instinks is a fan of parody and satire, and comedy and entertainment as a whole. He enjoys doing vocal impressions and foreign accents, and often includes these in some of the duo's videos as a gag, as well as using a mainstream announcer's voice, which people tell him he's very good. Kid Rubix Kid Rubix is a mutual friend of the duo. His nickname comes from his youthful features and thin build, and his skill in solving Rubik's cubes. He's an avid gamer who also enjoys playing games such as chess. He also sometimes drums as a hobby, and is a fan of post-hardcore and screamo music who attends Warped Tour every year. Kid Rubix has many tattoos on his arms, including video game characters, a set of drum sticks, and a Rubik's cube. He wears glasses, and can be seen in them in most of the videos he's featured in. He's participated in most of the channel playlists, and usually films a cameo whenever he hangs out with the duo at their house. Bread Boy Bread Boy is a mutual friend of the duo who has participated in several of their playlists on numerous occasions, including backyard boxing matches, breath hold battles, and stompdown videos. His persona is that of a toasty superhero who saves the world using comedy and sometimes-accented taglines. Aside from being an entertainer on the duo's YouTube channel, Bread Boy is also a talented musician and sketch artist. His "toasty" tan skin and dark features are attributed to his Puerto Rican heritage. His breath holding battles with Primal Instinks are among the most popular on the channel's playlist, due to the prolonged periods they each hold out for, and the amusing banter he contributes throughout the duration of the videos. Sloth Sloth earned his nickname one day when he was asked by Primal Instinks "if you could pick any animal you most likely resembled, which one would it be?" and he answered with sloth. The reason given was his laidback nature, shy aura, and his slow, soft way of speaking, and the nickname immediately stuck. Sloth is known for his good sense of humor, and regularly makes witty jokes. He's a night owl who likes to party and spend time with his girlfriend, and is expecting to be a father soon. As a result, his appearance on the channel is minimal. Like the duo, Sloth is a big fan of TV shows such as Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, Rick and Morty, and the short-lived US comedy trio Stella. References to shows like these often find their way in the banter included in videos he's featured in. Coltrain Coltrain is a juggalo who enjoys rap music, especially the Insane Clown Posse. He also produces his own rap beats, writes his own lyrics, and raps in his free time. Some of his freestyle lyrics appear in videos on the channel. Coltrain also refers to himself as a ninja, having spent time living in Japan and taking martial arts training classes. He can perform backflips, as well as other tricks without ease, which are demonstrated in videos on the channel. He's also a fan of anime shows such as Naruto and Dragonball Z, and games such as Pokémon. Coltrain has participated in stompdown videos and appeared on The Pool Kids Club playlist, as well as made recurring appearances on The No Deo Duo Show. He's also made several appearances in behind-the-scenes request videos for channel patrons, which he has a lot of fun doing. Danny Duck Danny Duck is a mutual friend who hangs out when he has the free time to do so. He made his channel debut in a stompdown video with Primal Instinks, then followed up with a breath holding battle with him as well. Danny has a lot of fun on the channel and plans on participating in more of it down the road. Danny's character is a suave foreigner type who likes to dance and shake his tailfeathers, and speaks in an accent which sounds like a cross between Borat and a Spaniard. His amusing jokes and banter made him an instant hit with fans. Recently, Danny began gaining fans after starting a playful wrestling rivalry with Primal Instinks and co-starring in the "Abs of Steel 2" challenge. He's also credited as a co-creator to the new "breathling" sport, which he participated in the debut of. Chief Slapahoe Chief Slapahoe is a friend of Primal Instinks who also knows T-Wrex. He's a tall, thin skater who, as his nicknames suggests, is part Native American. He has a very competitive nature to him, which is what led to him appearing in the backyard boxing videos on the channel. Chief Slapahoe has boxed Primal Instinks several times, with each round being more action-packed than the previous one. The playful rivalry then extended to wrestling, which he has a great deal of experience and skill in. Storm Storm is a new friend that Primal Instinks met through Chief Slapahoe. At the time of his debut appearance, Storm was the youngest friend to be featured on the channel. Storm enjoys sports, has played on teams for baseball and wrestling, and also skates and longboards as a hobby. Storm has participated in backyard boxing matches, breath holding battles, and stompdown videos. He also debuted the Backyard Wrestling playlist in a two-round match against Primal Instinks, which ended in a tie of 1-1. Unofficial Members There are several other friends and fans featured on the channel who make one-time and recurring appearances, but are not official members of The No Deo Duo. This includes friends who live in other US states who submit long distance videos to be edited and included on the channel. Channel Lore According to their website, The No Deo Duo's channel name originated from the unconventional fact that neither of the two friends use deodorant, one they found to be amusing upon becoming roommates. Upon creation of the channel, they invented nicknames and accompanying personas for themselves and their featured friends, which was said to be a combined effort, with Primal Instinks coming up with the rat and dinosaur personas, and T-Wrex coming up with the two witty nicknames. Like other YouTubers who choose not to disclose who they are in real life for a sense of mystery and reason of anonymity, the duo keep their private lives to themselves and personal information such as real names, ages, and locations undisclosed. They refer to their channel as their "virtual playground" and treat it as its own world. Along with assigning satirical animal personas to themselves, they also exhibit unconventional behaviors and act primitively, and are often seen running around shirtless and barefoot and acting crazy in videos. Tropes There are several tropes existent in The No Deo Duo's act, which are all detailed on websites such as TV Tropes. Some of the more prominent tropes include: * No Inside Voice: The duo are usually very loud in their videos. Primal Instinks speaks in loud, excitable tones and yells loudly, and T-Wrex screeches and makes other loud sound effects. * Does Not Like Shoes: The No Deo Duo are almost always filmed barefoot, and if not barefoot, wearing socks. While most of the videos are filmed at their house, videos of them outdoors also lack shoes, including a few videos showing them driving their vehicles barefoot. * Earthy Barefoot Character: Along with simply running around shoeless all the time, the boxing videos include the duo and their friends fighting barefoot on grass. There are also videos of the duo barefoot in the woods acting in a stereotypical primal nature. * Trampled Underfoot: The duo act as mean beasts who enjoy stomping on anything and anyone, and they display this in their stompdown videos along with mean banter. * Fearsome Foot: T-Wrex's video explaining his persona (embedded in his entry on this page) begins with a shot of his feet (see also "Feet-First Introduction"), followed by footage of him slowly stomping forward with his hands raised in dinosaur style. The next scene shows him drowning Primal Instinks by using his foot to hold Primal's face underwater in a puddle of mud (as well as a quick shot of him doing the same thing in a bathtub full of water), and then switches to a ground view facing up as he begins stomping at the camera and screeching like Godzilla. * Giant Foot of Stomping: The stompdown videos are mainly filmed from a ground point of view where the camera is set on the floor facing straight up as the duo and their friends stand over it and menacingly stomp at it. Part of this is a shout-out to Godzilla and dinosaurs, the rest is having fun by acting mean and aggressive. Fan Funding After achieving a cult following, The No Deo Duo began receiving video requests from fans who were interested in supporting their channel by way of monetary donations. In response, a PayPal account was set up, and a donation link was added to the duo's official website. The No Deo Duo often receive a lot of video requests and challenges from their fans, but have stated they don't have enough free time to fulfill them all. As incentive for fans who could potentially become donors, however, the duo announced the opportunity to fulfill video requests as gifts for channel patrons only, and began listing some of the requests they had already fulfilled for donors on their website, giving them creative titles and supplying descriptions, genres, and screenshots for each scenario they had acted out. Fans who donate to the channel also gain the opportunity to view the pre-filmed, behind-the-scenes requests as gifts if they didn't have or want a request of their own. Many of these requests consist of dangerous challenges, gross dares, and creative scenarios based loosely off the duo's sense of humor and pre-existing content. Gallery The No Deo Duo 1.jpg The No Deo Duo 2.jpg The No Deo Duo 4.JPG The No Deo Duo 5.JPG The No Deo Duo 6.jpg The No Deo Duo 7.JPG The No Deo Duo Primal Instinks face.jpg The no deo duo t-wrex face.JPG External Links * YouTube channel * Official website * SocialBlade entry * Primal Instinks' solo channel Category:Users that joined in 2016 Category:Male YouTubers Category:American YouTubers